Citations and Plagiarism
Proper citation is crucial to successful scholarship. By using citations, your reader or audience and find and identify the resources you have used. Most importantly, citations give credit to the authors of quotes or ideas you have used in your writing.
Failure to acknowledge sources of information properly may constitute plagiarism and can result in disciplinary action. For an explicit definition of plagiarism, see the Boston University Academic Conduct Code.
APA Citations
In social work, we often use American Psychological Association (APA) style citations. Visit the guide for APA citations here. It covers:
Why Do We Cite Sources?
Proper citation is an essential aspect of scholarship. Citing properly allows your reader or audience to locate the materials you have used. Most importantly, citations give credit to the authors of quoted or consulted information. It also allows us to ensure we do not plagiarize other author's writing, ideas, quotes, or findings without credit or attribution.
Citing Your Sources
All citation styles include the basic elements necessary to identify your sources. The order they go in and the level of detail you need may vary by citation style and the type of material you are citing.
- author
- title
- date of publication
- page numbers
- volume and issue numbers (for journal articles)
- doi (Digital Object Identifier)
If all you're looking for is a tool to format citations without all the storage, sharing, or advanced features, these resources may suit your needs:
If you want a digital tool to help you store and share your citations, a subject guide to citation managers is available here. BU Librarians often recommend 
RefWorks as the best tool to manage citations. Accounts are free for the BU community, and most importantly RefWorks can automatically create a bibliography in hundreds of styles.
Other Citation Styles
There are many different citation styles. Some additional common styles include Chicago style and Modern Language Association (MLA) style.
A Boston University guide to different citations is available here.
Other online resources include:
- Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab)
- Citing Sources Within Your Paper (Duke University) Duke University is responsible for this well-organized site about citing in the body of your text.
- Sources and Citation (Dartmouth College) This great resource from Dartmouth College is clear and easy-to-use.
- Documentation Styles (Simmons College) Simmons College has produced this guide that includes MLA, APA, AMA, ASA, CSE, and Chicago styles.
- Citation Guide (Harvard Business School) This excellent guide in .PDF from the Harvard Business School covers citation within text as well as how to do a bibliography using Chicago style.
- Citation Machine A site designed to help create bibliographies easily, this was developed by David Warlick & The Landmark Project.
- EasyBib.com
